Welcome to Gaia! ::

It all started with the first light snowfall of the season and, what at first, looked like a simple flurry of flakes near where the streets gave way to an empty field.

Aura knew the weather was changing and had wanted to see the snow for herself and - maybe just maybe - play in it a bit without anyone to tell her she would catch a cold. That's why she walked all the way out to the field of dying grass that she knew wouldn't have many visitors in this weather. Just her and the snow to frolic in.

The girl's gaze shone brightly with the very first drops of frozen water dancing in her blue eyes.

But wait...

She blinked as she scrunched up her nose and took a closer look at the very far end of the field.

Had that flurry of snow on the ground just moved? Or was that some small, white creature bounding about in the distance?

If it was an animal, she would just have to find out for herself!

α

Working sucked, Clay decided. Working sucked hard.

In fact, working sucked so hard that no one had a good time.

The long trek home proved far longer with the knowledge that he was on suspension from his job. unpaid leave for mouthing off to a customer sounded harsh to Clay, as he thought his actions were perfectly justified. One could not simply sneak a cockatiel into the cages without him noticing - especially when he stood right next to the cage with the lock in hand. So, when he chastised the teen using words he could understand - 'you dumb ********', specifically - Clay felt he illustrated a very good argument for the teen to cease his actions. After all, one could not simply mix and match cockaties and expect habitation to go smoothly.

Clay's boss saw otherwise. He always considered her a smart lady, and here he found fault with her judgement. Sure, dropping f-bombs to one's customers wasn't the best approach, but anyone could tell the kid understood what he meant. This whole suspension thing was stupid and unneccessary. Plus, saying that he only kept his job because he's been such a loyal worker just felt like an extra jab under the belt.

As he walked home, Clay's attention clouded over with thoughts of what he should've said to his boss, and how to feel vindicated in this whole mess. He decided she must've been on her period to make a harsh judgment like that, and determined he would forgive her for this biological fault later. He thought about how he might make money outside of his job, especially with a week of lost wages. Was there a drug market in DC? Or gangs? He liked the prospect of gangs. He could grab some serious street cred in a gang. He could get bitches, too. All the while, he listened to Wiz Khalifa and kicked the snow in dragging steps.

And then he kicked something that squeaked indignantly in response.

It was a rabbit, he realized, and his eyes went wide. "s**t!" Clay ripped the earphones out of his ears, knelt down, and tried to talk to the justifiably unhappy hare. "You okay, little guy?" He looked around, and spotted two girls in the vicinity; hopefully they didn't know he worked at a pet store or he'd be out of a job in no time.

The unhappy animal sound had caught Rana's attention, too. She jerked her head toward it and stared suspiciously at the guy who was crouched near the creature. It was so small and white it was hard to make out against the snow, even from this short distance away. Despite the fact that the guy seemed to have kicked it, he didn't seem to be hurting it now, so she wrote it off as an accident and turned away.

She looked back across the field again, resuming her search for a suitable snowball target. But she soon spotted something moving in the snow again. Something small and white. She glanced between the thing in the field and the small animal by the other two people and concluded they were probably the same kind of thing.

She decided to answer the other girl's question. "Considering there's another one out there...no, more than one," she corrected as she noticed at least two different things moving at once, "it's probably wild. Look, they're across the field there." She pointed in the general direction, since it was hard to point right at either of them when they were moving around like that.

Aura looked around with the girl's comment and found she was right. How had she not noticed them before? The creatures were all over the field!

"I think I see another one and... oh... another over there too... and across the way also."

Aura keep searching the snow-covered area and finding small, quick movements everywhere now.

"I wonder where they came from?"

It was then that she turned away and back to the boy who was talking to her. He had paused a bit awkwardly, but she didn't have time to process what had caused the stop in his words. The scared creature at her feet had apparently had enough of their intrusion and latched its surprisingly sharp little teeth onto her finger.

α

Clay knew enough to offer a potential answer to the girl's question. "They probably live in the woods around here. Maybe they got scared out of their homes by the storm or some, uh, thing." Damn was it hard to not swear around others. "Then they look for a new place to hide."

Then it bit her, and Clay couldn't stop himself. "Oh, s**t." It latched on and evidently refused to let go. "That's, uh, that ain't good. Seriously-"

The other girl threw a snowball, and Clay splayed a hand out to tell her to stop. "Dude, don't do that, you'll piss it off and it'll bite more. Just, uh. Push your finger further into its mouth. Then you roll it upward, like this." Clay emulated the motion with his finger. "S'what works for dogs." And cats. And pretty much anything else that bit him since he started working at the pet shop.

"You'll need to get that checked out. Might have rabies or some s**t." Clay himself was hesitant to touch it - that might agitate the rabbit more and cause her more harm.

By the time the guy warned Rana not to throw the snowball, it was already out of her hand. Thankfully, it seemed to scare the rabbit off anyway, so no harm done. She looked at the bitten finger and noted it didn't seem to be gushing blood or anything, so it probably wasn't too bad of a bite. Still, she agreed, "Yeah, you should probably at least get that cleaned and bandaged."

She looked out across the field scattered with little white critters and commented, "It's probably not safe to be out in this park right now if there's so many of those out, and they're prone to biting."

Feeding animals was never a bad idea in Aura's book. That was one kind of enounter with wild animals that didn't tend to go wrong.

"Do you want to throw on the count of three?"

She looked to both of them with wide blue eyes as she held the bundle of seed.

α

"Could," Clay grudgingly agreed as he tossed a handful of seed behind them, "but animal control'll ice these little ********." As Clay walked forward, one of the rabbits closed in on his position.

He felt the bite, and Clay jerked his leg out of the snow. "Goddamn piece of s**t!" He cursed as the bunny detached in a graceless arc toward the snow. "Alright, no more trying to feed these assholes - I'm out." He gave the best wave he could to the girls - since they were nice - but they didn't need to see him explode in righteous fury at a bunch of wild rabbits. Nor did the rabbits need it.

So the best scenario was to just leave, throw a bit of birdseed where they needed distraction, and get the hell out before more damage ensued.